[This is part of a series of posts which started here: My Love-Hate Relationships For MMOs – Part I. If you didn’t start there, you probably want to.]
Building a New Main
With my new PC up and running and me comfortably ensconced in my living room for gaming, it was time to sign up for World of Warcraft (again) and download it. As my old Warcraft account was from loooong ago, rather than trying to find it and resurrect it, it was truly easier to just start a new one. This, then, also meant I was starting without any characters.
At the time, the current expansion was, as I mentioned last time, Warlords of Draenor. In order to be Legion-ready, I would need to get my main up to max level (100 at the time) and do it rather aggressively. I didn’t want to just go for blatant “power-leveling”, nor did I want to take advantage of the single-use “advanced character” which was available (specifically designed by Blizzard to “catapult” you, as a new character, into the current expansion). It had been years since I’d seen Azeroth and I was honestly curious to see what had “changed” while I’d been gone.
Remaining true to my “roots”, there was absolutely NO FREAKING WAY I would play on the Alliance side. Sorry, but … once a Hordie, always a Hordie! Also, since I’d spent quite a bit of time on the “magic” side of the playstyle last time, I was somewhat curious about just going for melee DPS (damage dealer). I knew that (historically) leveling up as a “Tank” could be cumbersome, since the main form of XP is from killing NPC mobs and turning in the related quests. Tanks specialize in taking damage (and not dying from it) as compared with dealing damage and killing things. And then “Healers” don’t generally focus on doing damage at all, but, instead, on keeping party members alive.
So … for progression … melee DPS it was. Considering all of the alternatives, as well as the racial choices available for each, I ultimate rolled a Blood Elf (“Belf”) Paladin, planning, initially, on going down the “Retribution” spec. [Paladins have three specializations they can choose among. “Retribution” (or “Ret”) is for DPS, “Protection” (or “Prot”) is for Tanking, and “Holy” (never shortened) is for Healing. In fact, Paladins are one of the few broad-spectrum classes, able to fill all three slots if the player knows the playstyles.
Oh, and also, I chose a female Belf Ret Paladin. Why female? Well, pardon the sexism here (but suck it up and deal with it – this is my blog, not yours), but … a long time ago, I’d read some wise thoughts (paraphrased here) regarding playing an MMO:
If you’re going to spend hours and hours a day staring at the back-side of an animated character, you might as well make it one you appreciate looking at.”
– Anonymous Internet Source
Yeah … that. I’d spent more than enough time staring at the rear-end of a male troll Mage. Among the Horde races, Belfs simply are the “prettiest”.
With my Belf Paladin coming into existence on Sunstrider Isle, it was time to settle down and get myself seriously up to speed.
Thoughts on “Modern” Azeroth
As I played through, one thing I did appreciate was how relatively sturdy a Paladin was. Sure, there were a few times I narrowly escaped without dying, but the point more was that I did generally escape and let the mobs de-aggro from me so I could heal, recover, etc.
I was also semi-continuously using (and selecting) mods (the UI modifications), specifically aiming for those which made it “easier” for me to just flat-out play better and more efficiently / effectively. One in particular I remember (although not the name of it) was one which “monitored” the sequence of the actions I’d taken as well as whatever buffs I had placed on myself and would suggest the “next” thing to do in order to maintain my “rotation”.
Side note: in this context, a “rotation” is the series of actions you take, repeatedly, to maintain peak performance. So, for a DPS character, this would be the set of buffs to make sure you keep active during combat, or, possibly, the optimal sequence in which to apply actions.
[As an out-of-context example (and completely made up for narrative purposes), suppose you wanted to do the most damage as possible to someone. Your two possible actions are dousing them with several gallons of cooking oil and setting them on fire. Setting them on fire first may not be the most effective. So, your better alternative is to make sure they’re doused in oil first and then lit on fire. Congratuations – you have your simplified “rotation” for this task.]
Cities and The Auction House
I also made sure to get to the Horde Auction House (over in Orgrimmar … sorry/not-sorry, but it’s the Horde city I knew best. Even with my first character being a Tauren, I never liked Thunder Bluff – nothing is easily “connected” to anything else. As for the Undead’s “The Undercity“, just … ewwww. It’s far too … Alliance-y for me for comfort.
The point, as always, of the Auction House, by the way, is to be able to sell “good” gear (or crafting materials) while also buying anything you might need or want.
The Expansions
I’d already played through the base game (although I was highly disturbed by the giant gash dividing what had been the massive zone of The Barrens into Northern Barrens and Southern Barrens. [This was done as part of the Cataclysm Expansion.] Likewise, I’d played through The Burning Crusade and pretty much knew what everything looked like over there (as well, of course, as those effing Fel Reavers – see Part II so you, too, can know what I’m talking about).
Wrath of the Lich King was where things finally got to be new. Was enjoyable, but I don’t really remember any of it.
Honestly, I don’t remember much about any of the content from Cataclysm and how it was expressed as separate quests, etc. Much of the results of the expansion were already self-evident in how the overall landscape had changed. [I would suggest there should have been a bit better “divide” between pre-Cataclysm experience and post-Cataclysm … even long after the expansion. I suspect the impact on a new player of suddenly having the landscape and zones which they knew changed up as they play would’ve resulted in the same impact as for players at the time. At least then allow players to select if they’re starting a pre-Cataclysm or post-Cataclysm character from level 1.]
Mists of Pandaria was … well, it was horrible. I vaguely recall reading someone commented how it was like someone wanted to recreate a Jackie Chan movie in Warcraft … but then they took a large dose of some sort of psychedelic drug and then had the thought, “Wait! But what if… Pandas!!!” I distinctly recall playing through the entire area, constantly thinking, “Have I leveled out of here yet?” Yeah, it was downright unpleasant.
That got me to the “current” content of Warlords of Draenor. While Warlords was (for me) a vast improvement over the drudgery of Mists, it, too, later had its own bits of drudgery – in the form of the Strongholds … a fort you build up and then repeatedly send NPCs out on NPC quests to “do stuff”. Once I got to the level cap of 100, I was largely just wasting time and counting the days until the Legion pre-release started.
“Pre-Release”?
Yeah, pre-release. For every expansion, in the few weeks prior to the actual expansion release, there are all sorts of (new) repeatable content (quests and such) added which are the lead-in to the actual expansion.
I don’t recall, specifically, what the details were for the pre-release, but it was at least back on Azeroth and not on the expansion “world” of alt-Draenor (the “original” Draenor having been converted into the Outlands of Burning Crusade). Then the release itself came out and … was it ever FUN!!!
Legion
The “Artifact Weapons” and “Order Houses” were a cute thing as well. The Order Houses meant, basically, you could hang out with only other players with the same class, so it was a place filled with Paladins, and the Artifact Weapons were a weapon which was both class- and specialization-specific. So, as Ret Pally, mine was Ashbringer. And, the weapon was also leveling up (through an upgrade process), allowing, generally, alterations to existing spell / action behavior. On top of this, my mods were also keeping myself very damage-dealing (as was my goal).
Then I got into the dungeons for the expansion. After the first one or two LFG experiences which were … sub-optimal (mainly through utter lack of knowledge on my part), I decided to definitively not be “one of those people” who stumbles about in a dungeon party not knowing the cardinal rule of “don’t stand in fire”, or having no clue about the boss mechanics (what needs to be done when in order to down them quickly and efficiently with minimal time wasted). Thus, I was also spending a bunch of non-playing time doing research and learning about the dungeons.
This ultimately also translated over to learning more about the raids in the expansion. And, yes, I was proud to have actually finished all five of the raids, even if only in LFR groups. I was also commonly pushing (or helping to push) “Mythic-Plus” keys (which turned the dungeons into increasingly harder deathtraps with time limits for completion).
After a while, I also decided to try the Prot version of Pally, as I’d heard some very good things about the Prot Artifact Weapon being a sword and shield, Truthguard and Oathseeker. One of the more fun aspects of a Prot Pally was that one of the abilities was, basically, what I thought of as the “whirling hammers of death”. This ability would start two or three (don’t recall exactly) hammers whirling around you in a circle (with you at the center). You could pretty much just aggro a bunch of mobs and then your hammers would bludgeon them all to death while you focused on one to kill faster. Great way to get rid of mobs.
I wasn’t willing to try being the main tank in a raid, but I did off-tank several times as well as ran tank in some (non-Mythic) dungeons.
The two truly epic moments from Legion, though, were the two “big” cinematic scenes, the one from Illidan, and then, at the end. I’ll include both here so you, too, can enjoy them.
I think it safe to say that Illidan’s big “line” there has stuck with me for years. It … resonates … deeply.
And the final cinematic of the expansion (foretelling what the next expansion would bring).
And remember, also, I was playing in my living room, seated about 6 feet away from a 40-inch wide-screen monitor, so seeing these there was much more impactful. And, I wanted to play more. More, in this case, being the next expansion, whenever that came out.
And … Waiting For Battle For Azeroth
Sure, things slowed dramatically after the final raid completion, so I played very little during the closing months until the new expansion, Battle For Azeroth. During this time, when I did play, it was mostly to go for some minor improvements to my gear, or just to make sure I was still making golds at the Auction House. Nothing really serious.
Continued in My Love-Hate Feelings For MMOs – Part VI.
